“The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.” — Orwell, Politics and the English Language

“It is a certain fact that not all Muslims are terrorists, but it is equally certain, and exceptionally painful, that almost all terrorists are Muslims” — Abdulrahman al-Rashed, BBC News

Our language has been having rocks thrown in its gearbox for close to a century now. First, from the Critical Theory1 fucknuts that sprang up in the decadent nightclub culture of the rapidly failing Weimar Republic in the interlude between the two World Wars. One would assume it was a schizoid hyper-reaction to try and come to terms with, and explain, the brutish idiocy of the Nazis they were allowing to waltz in and seize society in a totalitarian death-grip with barely a murmur of protest. (more…)

It’s bad enough that Anita Sarkeesian is a flagrant con artist milking, realistically, 100’s of thousands of dollars out of the gender hysteria industry from a combination of thoroughlydebunked pseudo-sociology desperately seeking to establish a causative link between gaming and sexism, and perpetual “damsel in distress” mewling victim psychodramatics (which, ironically, is one of the main recurring complaint themes in Sarkeesian’s meagre video output) – but she is doing so with the same tax-exempt status as legitimate charities that actually attempt to help their communities.

A British woman has been told to expect a jail sentence after being convicted of the misogynist trolling of a feminist campaigner, adding new fuel to the debate over freedom of speech on social networks.

In the case that prompted Twitter to introduce a ‘report abuse’ button, 23-year-old Isabella Sorley and 25-year-old John Nimmo both pleaded guilty to sending menacing messages via a public electronic communications network. Sorley, who has numerous previous convictions for being drunk and disorderly, has been told she faces jail, while Nimmo is likely to receive a non-custodial sentence.

The pair had, separately, targeted Caroline Criado-Perez, who last year successfully campaigned for novelist Jane Austen to appear on English banknotes. Sorley tweeted: “I’ve only just got out of prison and would happily do more time to see you berried!!” and ‘Rape?! I’d do a lot worse things than rape you!!” — [Forbes.com](more…)

The kind of activism undertaken when you “do something” about a problem by tweeting or posting links to Facebook, without any intent of ever actually doing something. Nothing more than a nonsense feelgood gesture so that one can say they “did something about” whatever trendycause they’re pretending to care about. Usually only lasts a week or two before the cause is completely forgotten (i.e. it stops being cool to forward / retweet on the subject).

EXAMPLE: “I forwarded a video about some unspeakable atrocities in a country I didn’t know existed until I watched the video. My hashtag activism is going to accomplish something!” – [UrbanDictionary]

When my partner Richard and I joined the Kings of Code Hack Battle at the Next Web Europe Conference in Amsterdam last week, we knew that we wanted to make an app that would stand in stark contrast to the infamously misogynist “Tit staring app” from TechCrunch Disrupt last year. It’s about time that we change the “dude” culture of programming into a progressive group that builds apps for social change […](more…)

There is a viral video splattered everywhere you look at the moment showing what is alleged to be live frog sushi. I won’t repost it – it is vile and if you want to see it, you can find it yourself in 5 seconds on google.

Some be-birkenstocked nitwit somewhere found it (or more likely, was pointed to it by some gleeful troll), and from there a ‘net wide viral shitstorm and outraged barfing party has, of course, ensued. Countless web pages, Tweets, Tumblrs and ‘tardbook posts have spontaneously erupted, all having zero corroborating evidence or citation and tending to only be full of links to vegan propaganda… And, of course, there is the obligatory change.org petition. Because, y’know, that changes things and stuff. Just sign it and you can sit back smugly satisfied that you have worked for your cause and begin fishing for the next bit of bait to be outraged about. (more…)

Keep falling for that old, tired assumption that freefromthoughtblogs can no longer surprise me with its stupidity. This is so thoroughly gob-smacking that my bruised and battered mind refused to apprehend it fully on a first pass, probably as a self-preservation auto-response. It really makes the Prune look like a rocket scientist. I am at an absolute loss as to how a mind could become so degenerate and so immune to well documented reality. This is how a relatively new loser on the FfTB block defines Freethought, en route to earning brownie points by engaging in groupthink pissing on the latest witch of the week, Pat Condell –

Objections to Freethought‘s place in our masthead are among the laziest, glibbest soundbites our critics have, but more than that display a failure to grasp even the term’s most basic history. Freethought is not ‘free thought’ or uninhibited inquiry – to think so boasts the same green literalism as thinking a Friends’ Meeting House is a shared beach hut or that Scotch pancakes contain Scotch – though even if it were, it’s silly and inane to assume one’s critics are automatons or say loose collective viewpoints mean dictatorship. Freethought is a specified tradition, European in the main, whose constituents have by and large been countercultural, radical and leftist, everything Condell and cohorts viscerally despise.

Were it posted anywhere other than FfTB, I would at first assume it was a well crafted Poe designed as flame bait. Depressingly, the cretin appears sincere.

“Freethought is not ‘free thought’ or uninhibited inquiry”

Just read that back to yourselves a few times. Savour its exquisite barnyard aroma.

It beggars belief. I have to wonder precisely what kind of education process is responsible for churning out such a brain dead parrot. Or more importantly, who is responsible for embedding this kind of rote learned tape loop in his mind. Freethoughtblogs has more in common with Pol Pot than The Enlightenement. I have vivisected precisely why FfTB is the antithesis of Freethought previously, and no more needs to be said –

It is a credit to freeze peach that imbeciles like this exist and have blogs. Dining tables, as Barney Frank would put it. But it is a two edged sword. While dingbats like Alex Gabriel provide an endless source of mirth for the few actual Freethinkers that remain, consider the poor kids out there that are making their first lunges to free themselves from religions and cults. The likelihood is that they will do so online, and there is a high probability they will stumble on FfTB. And thus have their minds poisoned by a fresh brew of snake oil that the likes of Gabriel peddle…

This is where the real damage gets done. Do your duty. Save the kids from these charlatans. If you don’t, no one else will.